Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya has accused the World Athletics body of making her take medication that tortured her and made made her fear that she was going to have a heart attack.
Semenya told The Telegraph that on several occasions she offered to show her vagina to track officials when she was 18 years old to prove that she was female. The telegraph published the interview with the South African runner.
Semenya reflected on the 2009 world championships in Berlin where she comfortably won the 80m world title in sterling fashion as an 18-year-old newcomer at her first major athletics meet. Her performance lead the world track Body to order sex test which led to the controversial issue.
Gender tests on Semenya reportedly showed the runner had no womb or ovaries but that she had internal testes, the male sexual organs which produce testosterone, and her levels of the hormone were three times that usually expected in a female. Semenya has a condition known as hyperandrogenism, which is characterised by higher than usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass and strength and the body’s ability to use oxygen.
The telegraph reports that Semenya said that officials from the athletics body seemed to think that she had a penis. She reportedly said, “I told them it’s fine. I am a female. I don’t care. If you want to see I am a woman I will show you my vagina. Alright?”
Semenya was forced by the world track Body to take medication that artificially lowered her actually high testosterone after her world title win. This was ordered by the world athletics body if Semenya was expected to compete against other female runners.
She took medication after the first ruling in 2011 by World Athletics – then the International Association of Athletics Federations – that all female athletes with hyperandrogenism had to medically lower their testosterone levels.
“It made me sick, made me gain weight, panic attacks, I don’t know if I was ever going to have a heart attack,” Semenya told HBO. “It’s like stabbing yourself with a knife every day. But I had no choice. I’m 18, I want to run, I want to make it to Olympics, that’s the only option for me.”
Although the world track body has never released details of Semenya’s specific medication it is believed that she took birth control pills or something with similar properties to lower her testosterone.
